Influence of Culture on Literacy and Mulitliteracies

While reading HALR I was reminded of a portion of my grad thesis, which I have added to my blog. In particular the discussion about how to interpret rap and hip-hop in context of students cultural practices. As well as the quote about male students, which states, "By being open to different ways of being a boy, different ways of being literate, different notions of text, different ways of teaching and assisting students, and by promoting a connection between school activity and literacies from outside the school walls . . ." (369).

While the studies of multimodal literacies are fascinating, what I find more intriguing at the moment is how society has gotten to this point and how culture influences literacy. Heath and Street discuss their approaches to studying language and literacy through ethnography; this made me think about how the first visually recorded history was generated with signs and symbols. Cave drawings and hieroglyphics on stone walls to computer programs sending information by cyberspace—it is mindboggling if one stops to really think about “it.”
This may get a little muddy for the moment, as I navigate through my thoughts, but the culture of a society influences the design of signs and symbols used to communicate in that society. Each family unit brings its culture to society, i.e. education, religious beliefs, heritage, foods, and even how one prepares the food influence lives, therefore impacts the society one negotiates. I use the word negotiate on purpose because when one enters a new environment she/he brings one’s culture into that environment and either knowingly or unknowingly influences what happens in said environment. For example, in Dr. Wood’s speech class each student brought to the table, so to speak, his or her own culture, thereby adding a certain dynamic to the classroom culture, which directly relates to the multiple literacies already in place in the classroom. Added to these literacies are the literacies the students have learned outside the classroom. For instance, DJ had imbedded a YouTube commercial in a montage of photos, charts, and text to be explicated at a push of a button.
Then there were Abby, Alfred, and Jess who combined a skit, poster, handouts, and commentary to illustrate a point. Each student brought three diverse cultures to the project. Abby is a missionary-oriented student, Alfred comes from the Caribbean and has family in South Africa; Jess is passionate about music and music therapy. Their presentation focused on raising funds to dig a well in Africa so the people will have water to drink. An unlikely group—yet their multimodal text presentation was point on and well received. While my personal opinion on the presentation is not relevant to my paper, what is important to understand is that each student brought a different dynamic to the project through their culture and literacies learned outside the classroom.